ADVANCED BEHAVIORAL ACCOUNTING

CRITICAL REVIEW
"The Impact of Social Influence Pressure on the Ethical Decision Making of
Professional Accountants: Australian and New Zealand Evidence"

Name of Group 6:
P. Putu Medy Amanda. H 2281611028/03
Kadek Surianingsih 2281611036/11
Magdalene Wil Wio 2281611038/12
Ni Wayan Yantiari 2281611039/13

MASTER OF ACCOUNTING STUDY PROGRAM

FACULTY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS
UDAYANA UNIVERSITY
2023
A. ARTICLE REVIEW
The article to be reviewed is titled "The impact of social influence pressure on the
ethical decision making of professional accountants: Australian and New Zealand evidence"
by Clayton, B. M., & Van Staden, C. J. published in the Australian Accounting Review in 2015.
This research was conducted to assess the effect of social pressure on the ethical
decisions of Australian and New Zealand accountants and ways to mediate their impact.
Researchers evaluate the effects of inappropriate social influence pressures in the form of
compliance and conformity pressures generated by superiors and co-workers on individual
ethical decision-making. Next, researchers determined whether the level of organizational and
professional commitment reduced the pressure of inappropriate social influence. In this regard,
researchers made three hypotheses, namely:
1) H1: Pressures of social influence (in the form of compliance and conformity pressures)
will influence the ethical decision-making of professional accountants.
2) H2 : The existence of organizational commitment will reduce the influence of social
influence pressure on the accounting profession.
3) H3 : The existence of professional commitment will mitigate the influence of social
influence pressure on professional accountants
Researchers collected data through questionnaire surveys conducted online. The
questionnaire was created to capture the views of members of four leading professional bodies
in Australia and New Zealand (CPA Australia; Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia
(ICAA); New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (NZICA); and the National Institute
of Accountants (Australia) (NIA)) on ethical and/or commitment decision making. The survey
instrument used consists of several parts. Part 1 is designed to capture demographics in the
formation of questionnaire respondents. Part 2 is designed to capture the ethical decision-
making of respondents by providing scenarios that illustrate ethically compromised situations.
Researchers allocated the same respondent and randomly across three pressure groups
with three different scenarios. Pressure group one contains scenarios that do not contain
elements of social influence pressure (the 'no pressure' group); pressure group two contains the
exact same scenario as pressure group one except for the introduction of conformity pressure
(pressure group 'conformity'); and pressure group three contains the exact same scenario as
pressure group one except for the introduction of pressure compliance (pressure group
'compliance').
Researchers conducted a descriptive analysis and proceeded to analyze and report the
results based on pressure groups using the Chi square test (missing data was ignored in the
analysis). Then researchers used ordinal regression, which includes ethical behavior as a
scaled/ranked ordinal measure, and all demographic data in the same multivariate model to
control for the influence of demographic details on ethical decision making. Finally,
researchers examine the influence of organizational and professional commitment on the
pressures of social influence. The method for determining the level of organizational (and
professional) commitment consists of measuring the average responses to seven questions
Respondents were asked to rate each question on a seven-point scale, from 'strongly agree' (1)
to 'strongly disagree' (7), and an average below 3.5 was considered an indication of
commitment. The results were then compared for each scenario and pressure group.
The results showed that although professional body members displayed a high level of
ethical judgment, compliance and conformity pressures influenced their ethical decision-
making. In addition, a high level of organizational and/or professional commitment was found
to reduce inappropriate social influence pressures, where respondents who demonstrated a high
level of organizational and/or professional commitment were less likely to succumb to
inappropriate social influence pressures. The researchers' findings contribute to an
understanding of the influence of ethical decision-making by professional accountants, which
can make workplace environments more conducive to ethical decision-making by focusing on
reducing the pressure of inappropriate social influence by taking steps to increase
organizational and/or professional commitment.

B. CRITICAL REVIEW
From the summary of the article described above, it can be seen that the research uses
a sample that is representative enough of the population to obtain valid data. In addition,
researchers also ask for participation through their respective professional bodies to avoid the
possibility of response bias so as to increase the authenticity and credibility of research results.
This study uses a survey method, which can produce responses that match the
expectations or desires of respondents rather than actual answers. In addition, surveys only
provide data at one point in time, and do not provide data on changes or shifts in professional
ethical attitudes of accountants over time. Therefore, survey results tend to reflect only the
views or opinions of interviewees, making it difficult to generalize to the wider population. So
the measurement of the variables used in this study is debatable. For example, the measurement
of social influence pressure refers to only two pressures, namely compliance pressure
(superior) and conformity pressure (co-workers), without considering other factors such as the
external environment or psychological factors that might influence ethical decisions.
The use of regression analysis can limit the interpretation of research results, as it only
shows statistical relationships between the variables under study and does not provide an in-
depth explanation of the factors influencing ethical decisions. Theuse of regression analysis
must be done carefully to ensure that the relationship found is an actual causal relationship.
This research was only conducted in Australia and New Zealand so the results may not
be generalizable to other countries due to cultural differences and business environments that
may differ from other countries. In addition, this study also only focuses on social pressure as
a factor that affects accounting ethics, while there are many other factors that can influence
accountants' ethical behavior.
 REFERENCE

Clayton, B. M., &; VAn Staden, C. J. (2015). The impact of social influence pressure on the
ethical decision making of professional accountants: Australian and New Zealand
evidence. Australian Accounting Review, 25(4), 372-388.